Craft Stamper Christmas projects

I have a new project, well actually two samples, in the current Craft Stamper magazine which gives a step by step on creating that faux encaustic technique I have been loving using and there's also a follow up post on the Craft Stamper blog to create the simple background and an easel to attach so your project can stand on display. I love using easels on special canvas board cards.

Here are the sneak peeks .....

and the magazine pages .....

If you are reading this in November 18 you have a chance of winning some DecoArt fluid acrylic paints and a pot of the fantastic clear modeling paste being promoted in the magazine and on face book. As you know the DecoArt media range are my go to products and this is a prize well worth winning.

Thanks Trish Latimer and Craft Stamper, I always feel so proud and excited when a piece of my work has been published. 

And to you my fabulous readers -

xxx

Craft Stamper - Vintage Tart Tin Christmas Tree Decoration

This is a Craft Stamper project published in the magazine a couple of months ago which I thought I would share with you. Trish, our lovely Editor, sent out this small tartlet shaped tin to be altered and because my conservatory is decorated with white, cream, silver and light gold I thought I would keep to those colours.

Process steps

Paint the metal tart tin with two layers of Rustic Chalky Finish paint.

Rub over with candle wax and give a coat of Lace chalk paint and rub away the paint, repeat this a second time with a creamy colour.

Paint on a coat of cream creme wax, let it dry and buff, then repeat with dark brown wax and rub off as much as you need to to leave a shabby aged vintage look.

Stamp snowflakes with coffee archival ink.

Prepare a Christmas token and word band by painting over the lace chalk paint and carefully rubbing back with kitchen towel to leave the lighter colour in the word crevices. Use Teakwood alcohol ink to darken the edges.

Make up a little collection of shabby beaded berries and white painted pine cones and wire them together to create a little posy.

Assemble the elements together and add some ribbon to hang your decoration on the tree.

For me it's definitely 'the most wonderful time of the year', well one of them.

Hope all is well with you and yours.

hugs Brenda xxx

Fragile Winter Mixed Media Canvas

Last year I made a canvas for the Craft Stamper that I called 'Fragile Winter' and it was in the December issue. I am at last sharing it here and over on the Country View projects blog with the process steps I took to make the canvas background here and the snowflakes steps on CVC.

Step-by-step…

1.    Seal the canvas top and sides with a coat of gesso and dry, wipe over with a wash of magenta, then daub modelling paste in areas that you want to stamp the snowflakes.

2.    Heat dry the paste until a skin has formed, spritz the stamp with water and press it into the paste removing it straight away. 

3.    Paint layers of crackle paste all over the rest of the background and some on the sides and leave the whole canvas to dry naturally.

4.    Lay a darkish watery grey wash over the crackled areas dab off any excess with kitchen roll. 

5.    Layer light pink and grey layers of watery paints, let them drip and move around, drying between each layer. Then stamp snowflakes with watering can archival ink. 

6.    Brayer on white and cream paints, dry with a heat gun and then dribble and spritz white watery paint through the whole background. 

7.    Go back into a couple of the areas of the textured snowflakes with a very watery wash of magenta to create contrast and depth. 

8.    Finger paint thin white paint around the pink areas and lightly spritz the white shimmer mister to bring coherence to the overall design. 

9.    Dab watery colours into recesses if they need it and splatter a watery wash of titan buff and one of magenta dabbing off with a paper towel to further help unify the whole piece. 

To finish the project

·         Seal the background with a coat of Ultra Matte Varnish.

·         Add snowflakes using the same colours but deeper tones so that they stand out. Process steps to make these can be found at Country View Crafts project blog.

If you subscribe to Craft Stamper you may remember seeing it but it's that magical time of the year as Christmas approaches and as I was asked to teach the steps at 'Let's Be Creative' last week, I hope to be back soon to show you the new design I made to take with me.

Enjoy the lead up to December, it's only 26 days to Christmas.

hugs Brenda xxx

Craft Stamper project

Just catching up with projects that haven't been posted and I've realised that I've missed out several of my Craft Stamper makes so this is one that was published last month that I called 'Creativity Takes Courage' and I used a THAT'S CRAFTY shrine that the lovely Laura sent me. It stands 24 cms tall and is a very sturdy design, I used DecoArt chalk paints on it and it was a dream to paint and stencil on the lovely smooth surface.

I love this dancing girl with what looks like a shower cap on her head - hence the title, I thought they went together well.

DecoArt chalky finish paints are fabulous to use as a base which is what I did here and I added media fluid acrylic with it to stencil with. You can see it on the back of the box as well as the front.

There's a tutorial in the magazine on how to create the textured rust that I used on the doily.

I also stamped the very back panel as well.

Some butterflies were rusted and some were dipped.

If you take the Craft Stamper magazine you will find this on P.46 of the June issue.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope your weekend goes well.

huge hugs Brenda xxx

Craft Stamper February issue

A quick shout out today that if you have your Craft Stamper magazine - and I'm still waiting for mine to arrive - you will find me in there with a project I have called 

LOVE ANGEL

I'm only allowed a sneak peek for now but suffice to say if you want to see how I changed up Andy Skinner's Industrial Wings set to look completely different on an mdf heart with crackle and texture then do look to find it in the February issue of Craft Stamper which hits the shops on Friday 6th January. As ever I am so proud to belong to some amazing design teams and I'm really looking forward to rolling out some more mixed media projects in 2017.

Remember - 

The purpose of art is 

washing the dust of daily life off our souls. 

Pablo Picasso

I'm back at my desk and ready to create art, are you?

Have a wonderfully creative 2017.

hugs Brenda xxx


Update photo